


the sky reflects the water, the ashes are the flames

by Earth2StarChild



Category: Cursed (TV 2020)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Canon Compliant, Drowning, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Magical Bond, Multi, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Abuse, Post-Canon, Religious Imagery & Symbolism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-08
Updated: 2020-08-08
Packaged: 2021-03-05 19:13:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25790401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Earth2StarChild/pseuds/Earth2StarChild
Summary: “Stories are tangled things, passed across many tongues. The teller may emphasize one daring escapade and omit another. The next teller may heap accolades upon one hero and grievous sins upon the next. Time passes and soon the story of your life is more like a dream... or perhaps a nightmare. I guess it depends on who you ask.”Lancelot and the boy called Squirrel are on the run from the Red Paladins and seek refuge at a lakeside cottage from the weeping monk's distantly remembered childhood. Powerful magic is in the air and soon they have a very unexpected visitor.Two souls lost in a world on fire finally meet. A continuation of events immediately after the events of Season 1 of "Cursed" (2020)
Relationships: Nimue & Squirrel | Percival & The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed), Nimue/The Weeping Monk | Lancelot (Cursed)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 98





	the sky reflects the water, the ashes are the flames

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a hot minute since I've written fan-fiction for anything but this pairing and their snarky adopted child were just too good to resist and this purely self-indulgent mess was born. I hope you enjoy this first chapter, please leave comments if you have any suggestions for what I can improve on. Thanks <3

“Stories are tangled things, passed across many tongues. The teller may emphasize one daring escapade and omit another. The next teller may heap accolades upon one hero and grievous sins upon the next. Time passes and soon the story of your life is more like a dream... or perhaps a nightmare. I guess it depends on who you ask.”

++++

Nimue felt the arrows strike her and her body trembled with shock. Feet that had always been so swift and sure as she ran through the forest of her childhood now slipped from under her. Somehow her father caught her hand, and he clung to her with such desperation. The waterfall roared in her ears and his shouts seemed thousands of leagues away. Her fingers slipped and everything rushed back with painful clarity. Morgana’s wide eyes, Iris’s cold slight smile, and Merlin’s reaching, grasping hand catching at the air after her. She fell through the spray, water catching and tugging at the shafts of the arrows as she tumbled down, down, forever and not long enough. 

She hit the water and by some miracle held onto consciousness as the water knocked the wind from her lungs. She kicked upward, the water pushing her downstream at a furious pace. She gasped precious breaths before she was plunged down again by the current. The cold water stiffened her body as the arrows steadily bled her out and when the current had finally slowed Nimue had already expelled all the energy she possessed. The water about her was ribboned with blood and bubbles. It pulled her down, slowly, gently. Like a patient lover the darkness embraced her. She kicked once, twice unwilling to give in even now. Darkness enfolded her, just as suffocating as it was comforting. 

+++++

Elsewhere, the sun had risen high in the sky and a ragged pair on a weary horse ambled down a dusty road. A sandy-haired young boy with a black eye held the reins, the remains of a wiped bloody nose dried upon his cheek. A young man bent with exhaustion was seated behind him. 

The young man reached up carefully to touch his head and gave it a tentative press. His curling brown hair was pulled back in a small bun at the back of his head and was crusted with dried blood. He was no stranger to such injuries, the wound would heal quickly, but his head would probably ache for a week or so. He closed his eyes and tilted his head back slightly to feel the sun and smiled just slightly, it had been a long time since he had sat under the heavens with a bare head. His smile faded and looked back to the earth again. He was a damned soul, a Fae and the earth was his realm, not heaven. The mark of his heritage, the ash-folk, were there upon his face, twin scars under each eye that trailed down his cheeks. The Father had told him that the Devil had given him this eternally weeping countenance, but that he should not heed his urging to weep for the wicked. Only the righteous were worthy of his tears… 

The boy calls himself Squirrel, and the world knows the other as the Weeping Monk, the assassin of the religious cult, the Red Paladins. Their true names are Percival and Lancelot and they are Fae. Only a few weeks ago the monk had hunted his own kind, had hunted the young boy he now entrusted with his life. The boy who is now starting to jab him painfully in the rib... 

Lancelot shook himself from his reverie as the boy reined the horse to a stop “Well, we’ve reached the forest, now what?” 

He took the reins from the boy and turned the horse off the path, “Now little one,” Squirrel wrinkled his nose at that “I’ll guide us through the forest to our hideaway.”

“There’s not even a road?” He looked up at him with surprise “Are you going to smell our way there?”

Lancelot smirked, “we’ll follow the stream…” he pointed and in the distance, a brook sparkled slightly in the sunlight. It was just as Lancelot remembered it, even though so many years had passed since he had last beheld it.

“Ah yes, obviously.” the boy nodded sagely and Lancelot spurred the horse forward. 

They rode through the trees for another half-hour. He tried to keep his mind occupied, how would they bandage their wounds, find food, but the intrusive thoughts of greater danger prevailed. What possible course could they take with the church behind them, and the world ahead. Was the Father looking for him now… the lake hut had been one of the few secrets he had kept from Father Cardan. A small selfish memory of his past he had been unable to give up. The other memories came unbidden to his mind, the brush of his mother’s hand upon his cheek, a day spent watching the minnows in the creek and the birds in the trees. 

He had few memories of his mother. Father Cardan had found him when he was so very young and years filled with prayer and penance had expelled many of the memories of his old life. Those quiet memories with his mother before the day of fire had burned away as his calloused hands drilled with the sword and bow. As Father Cardan taught him of hell and then punished his flesh to purify his soul, somehow even his mother’s true name had been consumed by the fiery inferno with which Father Cardan sought to mold him. 

The brand of the cross upon his head burned and he hastily pulled his hood up. It was not well to dwell upon these things now. 

Pushing away these dark thoughts, Lancelot saw Squirrel lift his hand to point out the lake ahead of them, the boy slipped off the saddle and ran the extra distance to the shore and surveyed the vista around them one hand upon his hip. “Not bad. Not bad at all.”

Lancelot brought Goliath, their weary beast, to a halt beside him and let him drink from the water’s edge. He leaned forward in the saddle, “Was there any doubt?” 

“Of course not” Squirrel patted the horses flank and whispered conspiratorily into the creature’s ear “alright, maybe a little doubt.”

He’d truly taken on a handful. Lancelot dismounted and was about to touch the boy’s head fondly but he stopped himself feeling awkward in the motion. “There’s an old hut in the trees over there.” He pointed down the bank, “watch Goliath and make sure he gets enough water while I check it.”

Squirrel waved him off and he moved down the beach. Just as he remembered the hut still stood in the nearby grove, though its thatched roof and piled stone structure were not as sturdy as they once were. The inside was dry and would serve them for now. 

Lancelot fetched the boy and procured from his saddlebag a few bandages and a small jar of salve, it wasn’t much but he did his best to split it between them. Squirrel complained a bit saying the Red Paladin’s medicine was shit compared to the stuff they used to make in his village... but he let Lancelot apply it to some of his cuts anyway. With the boy taken care of Lancelot took off his tunic and applied a little amount to the wounds there. Squirrel sat very still beside him, it was obvious he was staring at the scars on his back, most of them not very old. Lancelot quietly put his clothes on again and stood to go tend to Goliath. 

“Who did that?” Squirrel asked quietly, perhaps the quietest Lancelot had ever heard him speak. 

He replied quietly in return.

“I did.” 

++++

They tidied up their temporary house as the sun started to set. Squirrel, used to foraging in a forest, was able to find a few berries and catch a rabbit for their dinner, though it was a fairly skinny thing. Though he had no prior experience fishing, Squirrel promised that tomorrow he would catch them a fat fish from the lake.

The moon was shining at half-crescent, and Lancelot had insisted that he would take the first watch. Squirrel was already fast asleep sprawled out on the only bedroll by the fire and Lancelot sat in the doorway and looked out at the lake shimmering in the half-light. 

They would stay a few days at most and then they would have to move on. But to where? Was there any place truly safe? The church now lacked him and his ability to sense his own kind, but for how long would that slow them? If they had a skilled enough tracker they could easily begin to follow their trail at some point. 

The former monk pondered on these things as the firelight slowly dimmed and he allowed himself to fall into a light sleep. He remained undisturbed until “the witching hour” was upon them. 

Fae legend tells that 3o’clock is the time when life and death meet, and that the veil between the hidden and the waking world is at its thinnest. The church calls it the evil hour, the time when Fae witches summon the devil to cavort and curse the god-fearing. 

At first it was only the wind picking up and blowing through the trees to pass over the lake but then there was a sudden stillness, like all the world was holding its breath. Lancelot woke, and his hand immediately fell to the hilt of his sword. His heart at first filled with anxiety was suddenly soothed by some unseen tremor in the air. The sparks of the dying fire twirled with no wind to guide them and moved in unison around him. Lancelot stood quickly. The sparks moved, leading him forward. He followed them to the beach and there on the lake. A girl. The sparks floated across the still water to her. 

She stood on the water, illuminated by the moonlight. When she held out her hands, her palms facing the night sky, she moved across the water, though her eyes had remained closed. Drawn forward by the sight, Lancelot walked out slightly into the lake. As if she sensed the ripples of his movement across the water, she floated towards him. As she drew closer he saw that her chestnut brown hair was loose down her back, and that she had a green vine-like marking on her cheeks. The sparks that had simply hovered around her now began to move about her head in the shape of a Triquetra. In that moment the grey monk felt that the strange vision was more beautiful than all the madonnas he had seen in all the cathedrals of Britannia. The beautiful vision was disrupted by the stark realization that a stream of red blood stained the front of the girl's dress. He reached out and caught the girl's hand in his own and the world suddenly exhaled the collective breath that it had been holding. They were both of them were sent crashing back into the world of wakefulness. 

The girl collapsed into him and both of them fell with a loud splash into the surf. He pulled her to shore and cradled her head on his arm. He looked down at her in stunned amazement. The scent was unmistakable. Like Squirrel, it was of the Skyfolk, a mixture of starlight and ancient oaks, but she was something more, there was darkness and lightning with this girl. At the abbey, it had been hidden from him under the starched layers of a nuns habit. Now she was here. The Wolf-Blood Witch he had been searching for.

She was here. “How in the world was she here?” he screamed inwardly. She wasn’t dead, not yet at least. She wasn't off leading the Fae somewhere, or given over as some political prisoner to ensure the Fae’s passage on ships leaving the country. She was here lying in the lapping waves of a lake, bleeding, as he sat there wasting time wondering how she’d got there. He picked her up as carefully as he could manage and carried her to the hut. He hastily nudged Squirrel with his foot and the boy groaned at him. “Percival, it’s Nimue, she’s hurt.” 

Squirrel’s eyes popped open and sat up in surprise when he saw Nimue. “How…”

“I don’t know. Get up quickly, we need to treat her.”

As Squirrel built up the fire again, Lancelot set her down gently on the bed roll and rolled her onto her side to undo her corset. With that removed he hastily sent Squirrel away to fetch water. Ignoring his own embarrassment he steeled himself and pulled back the edge of her blue tunic to examine her breast. Two arrows had struck her in the chest, surely it was a fatal wound, but her chest still rose and fell. He examined the wounds closer, somehow the deeper wound had been healed, but two deep cuts still remained in their place. Shaking away his surprise, this was obviously Fae magic he was dealing with, he produced his only medicine and hoped that the ointment would be enough to keep the wound from festering. Nimue muttered in her sleep as he applied his treatment but did not wake. He covered her quickly and Squirrel returned with the requested water.

Together they helped her drink, “Will she be alright?” Squirrel whispered. 

“I think she will, yes.” 

Squirrel wiped his eyes angrily and stood, “if she doesn’t live I’m holding you responsible.”

The monk paused and laid Nimue back “I understand...”

The boy turned sharply to look at him, “I trust you… cause you saved me before, and you're on our side now,” he glanced down at Nimue, “aren’t you?”

Was he on their “side”? He wasn’t quite sure what he was at the moment, all his life he had run from his heritage, and had told himself that he could erase it. That he could atone for his birth by spilling the blood of others of his kind. All that time he was alone and when he had seen the brotherhood between the Fae. When Gawain had called him brother despite all he had done... and then Squirrel had stood against the Trinity guard to protect him with only a few stones... In that moment damnation had been far more appealing than any of Brother Cardan’s promised exaltation. 

Lancelot reached out and let his hand fall gently on Percival’s head “I promise, I will not let any harm come to her.”

**Author's Note:**

> Triquetra - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triquetra


End file.
